A Tree Grows in Springfield (S24, E06-514)

Brockman "hopes" he can stop hope before he can be stopped.

Plot Summary
Homer is depressed about life in general.  Not even a Duff-sponsored party can cheer him up.  He remains depressed as his family takes him to a school raffle.  However, to his surprised glee, Homer ends up winning the top prize in the raffle: an Apple iPad - oh I'm sorry, a "Mapple MyPad", whatever.  Anyway, Homer loves his new iPad and it does everything for him, including cheering him up.  Homer in particular becomes addicted to a pizza making app, and becomes so distracted by it he doesn't see where he's going and falls down an open sewer drain.  Homer is physically not too hurt, however the iPad did not survive.  The iPad wasn't the only thing that shattered, so too did Homer's newfound optimism.

Depressed once more, Homer is dragged out by Ned Flanders to be shown an odd sight: his tree has maple markings on it that spell out the word "HOPE".  As Homer had prayed to God for a goddamned break after his iPad broke, and with Ned Flanders preaching a "even if your tires are flat, you just take things real slow until you reach the next station" message, Homer decides to see things in a new light.  In church, Homer tells everyone about the hope tree, and a following of people start praising the supposed miracle.

Kent Brockman, disillusioned after a childhood incident involving a guy in a Mickey Mouse costume, remains skeptical and decides to find out the truth behind the message.  Quickly, Brockman learns and shows to everyone videotape of a mysterious stranger coming from out of nowhere and painting the word on the tree using typical store-bought maple syrup.  The message of hope dies, as does Homer's optimism again.  Marge finally cheers Homer up for good by telling him that he doesn't need iPads or fake tree messages because the hope he felt was real, not to mention there was somebody out there on Homer's side telling him to keep hope.  Later that night, the mystery person returns to the tree, and ends up being a sleepwalking Homer, subconsciously telling himself to keep hope alive.

With the episode done early, a short mini-cartoon about a love story is presented, but its two minutes worth of referencing nearly every false product the show has made over the years.  Yawn.

Quick Review
Two things really bothered me with this episode, as "grounded" as it was: everything involving "Mapple" and the "MyPad" and Steve "Mobs" and jabs at Apple's privacy concerns because "everyone cool owns iProducts so if we just mention how much Apple sucks ironically then we'll get all the laughs!"  Why.

The short story at the very end was stupid too, again only there because the main plot was boring enough that it couldn't fill up just two more minutes.  The main episode had a couple of decent jokes and moments, but overall it was boring mixed with a few lowlights, which is why it scored so low.

Final Score: 5.4

The D'oh-cial Network (S23, E11-497)

Oh, I'm disliking it alright.

Plot Summary
Lisa is brought to trial, responsible for some kind of calamity.  With the town's one competent lawyer prosecuting her, Lisa begins to tell her side of the story.

Some time ago, the family goes to the new mall in Springfield, intent on spending a bunch of gift cards Marge had saved.  In the process, Lisa comes across Sherri and Terri, who promptly inform Lisa she's as unpopular and friendless as ever before.  Meanwhile, Homer gladly buys a new "M"apple computer, and decides to let Lisa use it later to find some friends.  Lisa realizes that people are more talkative on the internet and decides to start up a social network of her own with hopes that everyone that joins it will be friends with her.

With the help of the school's brightest, Lisa is able to start up her site, "Springface".  Quickly, kids across school starts using it.  In no time, Lisa has 1000 friends on it, though she then learns its partly because adults have started using it en masse as well.  Sure enough, the entire town is glued to their phones and laptops as they continually monitor their Springface statuses.  Having so many online friends, Lisa is devastated to learn that none of them are willing to actually do things in real life, opting to stick to their phones.

The site proves a big enough of a distraction that accidents begin to occur across town, resulting in a few dozen deaths even.  The source of the trouble is quickly determined to be Springface, and that's why Lisa is on trial.  After a half-assed defense, Lisa relents and accepts the punishment of shutting down Springface.  With the site down, everyone just throws away their phones and junk, and the idea of physical activity returns to the town again.

With the episode ending extremely early, two shorts are presented afterwards: Patty and Selma are beating out some Swedish duo at the London Olympics, and a tale about the wicked Bart is told, though its revealed its Skinner trying to prove that pranks don't pay.

Quick Review
I'm not even 30 years old yet and already these newfangled technologies bother me so.  Well, not really, its not like I'm not familiar with Facebook or anything, but the open-faced parallel the episode does with it and the movie based on it just does not work.  You can tell the writers realized they had a dud on their hands when they left it so short they needed a really long couch gag as well as not one, but two short stories to fill time.  There was just so much about the main episode that wasn't funny, it easily makes it the worst episode of the season (...thus far...).

Final Score: 4.7

Mypods and Boomsticks (S20, E07-427)

Oh look its characters with the same voice actor meeting each other.  Again.

Plot Summary
The Simpsons go to the mall the day after Christmas to return Bart's calenders.  There, Lisa spots that there is a new "Mapple" store, and the family checks it out.  Lisa wants to get a "Mypod" badly, but doesn't have nearly enough money to get one.  Fortunately for her, Krusty walks in displeased with his Mypod and just gives it to Lisa.  Meanwhile, a message from Steve "Mobs" pops up on a big screen, which Bart hijacks for amusement.  The rabid employees there learn of what Bart did and attempt to give him hell.  Bart is able to run away, ending up far away from the mall.  He smells some kind of meat being cooked, and goes to investigate.  He finds a young boy cooking lamb and Bart decides to befriend him.  The boy, Bashir, and his parents are from Jordan.  Bart tries to get Bashir accustomed to school, but when he learns Bashir is Muslim, Bart has to make sure Bashir doesn't get beat up just for being different, successfully warding off bullies to protect his new friend.

Later, Homer meets Bashir and takes a liking to him.  However, at the bar, Homer's friends convince him that because Bashir is Muslim, that automatically means bad news.  Following a stream of advice in his head from Lenny, Homer invites Bashir's family over for dinner in an attempt to out them as terrorists.  Bashir's family doesn't like Homer's attitude and demeanor, and leave the dinner.  Marge chides Homer for his intolerance, and forces Homer to go to their house and apologize.  Homer goes to the house but before he knocks, he notices something going on in the garage, and spies Bashir's father preparing dynamite.  Homer rushes home to tell Marge, but she's less than interested and Homer is content on telling her about it tomorrow.  Homer then has a dream where the similarly voiced Genie from Aladdin appears to turn everything Muslim.  Homer can't deal with it, and decides he has to stop the supposed terrorist plot.

Homer spies Bashir's father leave, overhearing only that he's going to suicide bomb a building, not that he's actually going to blow up a building in a safe, approved manner.  Homer infiltrates the house by having Bashir's mother invite him in for a talk, then going off on his own to find a laptop that features an image of the Springfield mall next to a TNT detonator.  Homer panics, and rushes over to the mall to warn everyone (save his sisters in law) of an unspecified danger.  Just then, he sees Bashir and his father, along with Bart whose hands are on a detonator.  Bashir's father has set up dynamite to blow up the old mall across the street, which is abandoned.  Regardless, Homer rushes into the building, removes all the dynamite, and tosses it into a nearby river.  The dynamite drags the detonator, forcing it to trigger just as the dynamite reaches a bridge, blowing it up.  Some time later, Homer hosts Bashir's family again in yet another "sorry for being intolerant" barbecue.  Lisa is missing, though, as it turns out she downloaded so many songs on her Mypod she ended up with a $1200 bill, and has gone to Steve Mobs himself for forgiveness, but has to pay the bill off by putting on a costume and handing out pamphlets on a street corner.

Quick Review
This episode was better than I thought it'd be.  Given this is zombie Simpsons, you would think an episode that focuses on Muslim culture AND Apple culture would be a recipe for disaster.  True, Lisa's "Mapple" adventures dragged the episode down some, as pretty much that entire bit wasn't funny.  However, Homer's newest intolerance spree provided a level of comedy I wasn't expecting, and salvages the episode.  Even with the lame Apple parodies I didn't find a whole lot wrong with the episode save for the continued lessened quantity of jokes.

Note: for those a bit confused with the caption, Dan Castellaneta voiced the Genie in pretty much everything that wasn't the original Aladdin movie.  Robin Williams voiced Genie in that movie but Dan took over from there.

Final Score: 7.1